Memories of a Catholic Girlhood / How I Grew / Intellectual Memoirs

by Mary McCarthy

Three candid, affecting memoirs by the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Group, including a National Book Award finalist.

In Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, Mary McCarthy begins with her recollections of a happy childhood cut tragically short by the death of her parents during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Tempering memory with invention, McCarthy describes how, orphaned at six, she spent much of her childhood shuttled between two sets of grandparents and three religions—Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. Early on, McCarthy lets the reader in on her secret: The chapter you just read may not be wholly reliable—facts have been distilled through the hazy lens of time and distance.

How I Grew is McCarthy's intensely personal autobiography of her life from age thirteen to twenty-one. With detail driven by an almost astonishing memory recall, the author gives us a masterful account of these formative years. From her wild adolescence—including losing her virginity at fourteen—through her eventual escape to Vassar, the bestselling novelist, essayist, and critic chronicles her relationships with family, friends, lovers, and the teachers who would influence her writing career.

And Intellectual Memoirs opens with McCarthy as a married twenty-four-year-old Communist and critic. She's disciplined, dedicated, and sexually experimental: At one point she realizes that in twenty-four hours she "had slept with three different men." Over the course of three years, she will have had two husbands, the second being the esteemed, much older critic Edmund Wilson. It is Wilson who becomes McCarthy's mentor and muse, urging her to try her hand at fiction. Intellectual Memoirs is a vivid snapshot of a distinctive place and time—New York in the late 1930s—and the forces that shaped Mary McCarthy's life as a woman and a writer.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

People note American writer Mary Therese McCarthy for her sharp literary criticism and satirical fiction, including the novels The Groves of Academe (1952) and The Group (1963).

McCarthy studied at Vassar college in Poughkeepsie, New York and graduated in 1933. McCarthy moved to city of New York and incisively wrote as a known contributor to publications such as the Nation, the New Republic, and the New York Review of Books. Her debut novel, The Company She Keeps (1942), initiated her ascent to the most celebrated writers of her generation; the publication of her autobiography Memories of a Catholic Girlhood in 1957 bolstered this reputation.

This literary critic authored more than two dozen books, including the now-classic novel The Group , the New York Times bestseller in 1963.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_McC...

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got halfway through the second memoir; I think Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood, the first, is her strongest. A startlingly contemporary voice (unapologetically radical for her time) speaks about her horrific childhood in an insightful and thankfully un-cliched way.

[Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

These books are unfortunately underwhelming me. I had high hopes that McCarthy's 3 volumes of her memoirs would be illuminating and interesting. They are not, at least so far. Having finished the first book, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, which I found pretentious and kind of annoying, and most of the second book, How I Grew, which is somewhat more interesting but no less pretentious, I doubt that I will move on to the third, Intellectual Memoirs, even if I finish the 50 or so pages I have left in How I Grew. Maybe her novels are better, or maybe I'm just not interested in what she has to say. I suspect the latter.

[maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fascinating parts, particularly her childhood and the whole Jewish/Catholic/Protestant scenario. But I got bored with her reading lists and literary analysis. Obviously she lived outside of accepted cultural patterns which is potentially exciting but I would have preferred more personal reflection on her life choices.

[Don · Rating 5 out of 5]

(FROM MY BLOG) Mary McCarthy, whose novel, Birds of America, I discussed last week, was a leading American author and intellectual, with deep roots in Seattle.  In my prior post, I indicated having earlier read her autobiographical Memories of a Catholic Girlhood.  I've since discovered that I "misremembered" (as the word currently in vogue expresses it) having done so.  At most, I merely skimmed portions of it that interested me at the time.

McCarthy, born in 1912, was the granddaughter of Harold Preston, co-founder of the Seattle law firm that later claimed William Gates -- father of Microsoft's Bill Gates -- as a named partner.  Preston's wife was Jewish, at a time when being Jewish was a matter of some social importance.  Her father's family was Irish.

As she recounts in her Memories, both parents died of influenza within days of each other in 1918, while on a family visit to Minnesota leaving McCarthy, age six, and her three brothers orphans.  Her Minneapolis relatives, on the McCarthy side, farmed the kids out to an aunt and uncle who "cared for them" in scenes of Dickensian cruelty and neglect.  When she was eleven years old, grandfather Preston got wind of what was going on, and brought Mary back to Seattle.

While her early years are unsettling to read, her personality as a girl rather than a victim began to bloom during her years at Seattle's Forest Ridge school (since moved across the lake to Bellevue), under the tutelage of strict but caring nuns, the "Ladies of the Sacred Heart."  It was while at Forest Ridge that she "lost her faith" -- not because of mistreatment or intellectual ferment, but almost by accident: she craved more attention from nuns and fellow students, and decided that a spiritual crisis might secure it.  In trying to prove to a skeptical priest the reality of her overnight conversion to atheism, she actually succeeded in talking herself into believing that which she thought she'd been only pretending to believe.

After eighth grade, Mary attended Garfield high school -- my own neighborhood public high school -- for her freshman year, with disastrous consequences academically.  Being in daily contact with boys made algebra and composition seem tedious by comparison.  Her grandparents whisked her off to Annie Wright's -- an Episcopalian girls' school in Tacoma -- for the remainder of high school.

Mary McCarthy is a fine narrative writer -- humorous, detailed, and unexpectedly compassionate to the people who surrounded her in her youth.  She was clearly a brilliant child, with an underlying rebellious streak.  Although popular at times, she was something of a loner.  She feels she must have possessed some qualities, something odd, unknown to herself, that prevented both faculty and fellow students from ever quite accepting her as one of themselves.  She recalls specific students and teachers with both fondness and contempt -- but always with care.

She brings to life long-forgotten eras of education.  Memorably described was the play -- written by her stern Scottish-born teacher -- based on the Roman struggle between Cicero and Catiline.  Presented to Annie Wright's students and their parents, it featured a female Cicero presenting, from memory, Cicero's first Cataline oration:

"How far, at length, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?  To what ends does your audacious boldness boastfully display itself?"

How far, at length, Miss Gowrie, [interposes McCarthy], could you abuse their patience?  Cicero's oration lasted thirty-one minutes by Miss Gowrie's watch.

And the play had barely begun.  Mary played Catiline.  As she recalls the performance, her interpretation of Catiline's response, which she decided upon on the spot, was a tour de force -- one that brought the audience to its feet, in "thunderous applause."  Well, maybe, Ms. McCarthy.

McCarthy, despite her life-long atheism, avoids the common habit of blaming her Catholic upbringing for any adult woes or inhibitions.  Instead, she is pleased with the strong academic foundation it provided, and she recalls "with gratitude ... the sense of mystery and wonder" she absorbed.  Because of both the decade in which she lived her youth -- the 1920s -- and the other-worldly ambience, foreign to today's readers, of pre-Vatican II Catholicism, McCarthy's Memories call to life an alien, and yet oddly alluring, world.
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As though in anticipation of this week's clamor over "misremembering," my edition also includes McCarthy' lengthy post-publication discussion following each chapter, analyzing the points about which her memory may have been mistaken, where she had deliberately reshuffled events for narrative purposes, and where she had presented possibilities or probabilities as certainties.  Taken together with the original text, the result is a book the combines the best of both documented history and historical fiction.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Collected together here in one volume, and now newly reissued as an ebook, the book stars well but soon heads downhill. The first part, Memories of a Catholic Girlhood is relatively compelling, describing as it does Mary McCarthy’s early difficult years after the death of her parents and gives an evocative picture of an intelligent and precocious child battling against surroundings in which she is never at home. The second volume, How I Grew, continues the story of her education and becomes increasingly tedious as she describes all the people she met and interacted with, the vast majority of whom mean nothing to most readers and who are instantly forgettable. The last volume, Intellectual Memoirs, New York, 1936-1938 is of interest from a biographical viewpoint but unfortunately McCarthy doesn’t come across as a particularly pleasant or empathetic character and I found her life, although interesting up to a point, not one in which I felt at all engaged. So a useful book to learn more about her but not a particularly absorbing read.

[Barbara Mader · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the only book I had along on a recent trip (five flights); as a result, I read it twice (along with lots of newspapers). I wasn't crazy about it, but it was interesting to me for personal reasons. I wasn't crazy about the author, either--that is, how she came across in the memoir. I found her a little too precious and thought she came across as high-handed and an intellectual snob. Also, while I realize memoirs tend of course to betray self-absorption, she did seem to be *extremely* fascinated with herself. But a number of things interested me, as she wrote about both Saint Paul and the Seattle/Tacoma area (I've lived in both areas), and about Catholicism (I was reared Catholic), and about odd family dynamics (most people can probably relate to that). So . . . two stars.

[Katie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was, for me, an interesting exercise in determining whether the author is ironically demonstrating what a spoiled little brat she was, or if she honestly thinks her childhood suffering was that important.

[Emily D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love McCarthy's voice. Honesty and clarity comes out, even when she admits she may not be telling the truth. Memory is what it is. It's not a clear substitute for reality. On the Catholic thing--spot on theology in my opinion. On Mary's part.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

All too appropriately what I brought along with me to Paris when I studied abroad in spring 1999.

[Elena Farrugia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The strength of her voice stood out. I managed to read this in one go during a long train ride from scotland to the south of england. I love how flawed she writes herself as. A testament in itself to her maturity compared to her younger self.

Her childhood is very Jane Eyre adjacent but she breaks away when explaining the real effects on her character flaws as she grew up. It was interesting how being an orphan lent itself to her thinking she was special, and causing her to be frustrated to not being treated as such.

We always read christ adjacent stories of orphans, harry potter, jane eyre and many more. All who live in some self sacrificing, giving way. It was refreshing to read of someone who wanted more, who knew she was special. As we all have when we were young. Not quite the martyr we expect from the perfect victim. Especially how that belief lead her directly into deconstructing from christ.

I loved that insight into catholicism. Because as much as people love to blame belief on trying to explain the universe, my understanding is that every believer i’ve ever met just wants to be special. They want to be chosen, they want to be spoken to by god unlike anyone else in this silent time.

[M. Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating look at a culture and an era. It may also appeal to fans of the did-she-see-it-or-didn't-she? type of mystery since author McCarthy weaves back and forth her memories as she initially portrayed them and a later attempt to determine which details were accurate and which may not have been.

[Peggy Holtman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed! I read this book because Mary Karr referenced it so much in her memoir. I found it uninteresting and wonder about the title. Since she declared herself to be an atheist pretty early on, why the title?
Of course some moments of brilliance. I did like that, in using a cursive font, she periodically comments on her choice of events which does inform the reader of the choices an author makes in a memoir.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mary McCarthy’s three memoirs are an extraordinary look at the creation of one of our great intellectuals, a powerful voice against the Vietnam War, and as intriguing, one of our major novelists

And she is also a stimulating and engrossing memoirist, one who will prick your own memory if not with similarities, then with differences, so that you are like me you will find yourself recalling times early in your life and later on too, episodes with your parents, with your aunts and uncles and grandparents, cousins and friends, who now may be lost to you due to distance or death.

Thus these three memoirs are not also fascinating in their own right, they are also catalysts for your own memories.

[Owm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can relate with the author's experience in my primary years. Grew up Catholic, went to a Catholic school, and lived in a Catholic environment. As an inquisitive child, I was not satisfied by the justification of most Catholic rituals, practices, and culture. It was bizarre looking back now that I'm not a Catholic anymore.

Respect for the choice of Ms McCarthy in the end (not that I would vouch for it, but because she is also a human being).

Memoirs, like this, are a good to contribute to an incomplete History.